Mental Health & Wellbeing
Senior Leader in Mental Health- Miss Lister
Mental Health First Aiders- Mrs Robinson and Mrs Wilson
At St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, we care about your child/children beyond their academic abilities within the classroom and value each child as an individual whilst appreciating the ups and downs of life they each face.
The emotional health and wellbeing of your child is extremely important to us; we want all children that come to our school to be happy and content and to achieve their full potential in life.
Challenges are a normal part of life that we all face no matter how big or small they are! Some of these challenges may be hard and we need support to manage it and others will be easier for us to manage by ourselves. All challenges push us outside of our comfort zone but help us to grow and learn new interests, more about the world and who we are!
We are able to offer a variety of different interventions and support for both you and your children.
We offer differing levels of support:
Universal - To meet the needs of ALL our pupils through our overall ethos and our wider curriculum eg our virtues led curriculum
Additional - For pupils who may have short-term needs and those who have been made vulnerable by life experiences such as bereavement.
Targeted - For pupils who require long-term support and ongoing mentoring
Catholic Care
Everybody needs someone to talk to sometimes! There are times when we might need a little bit of extra support to talk through our feelings or develop strategies to cope with something that is worrying us. This is when a referral to Catholic care may help! Jo Palmer, our Catholic care worker, has a wealth of knowledge and experience and can offer a vital support to our pupils. She can use games, art work, mindfulness and offer strategies to children to help them deal with whatever it is that is causing them distress. Children have been referred because they have been bereaved, have experienced parental separation, have self-esteem issues, are struggling with friendship groups etc - there are lots of reasons why a child may need extra support and lots of ways in which Jo can help! If you feel that this may be something that would benefit your child, please talk to your child's class teacher. Jo is only at St Joseph's for a day a week so there is limited capacity and we do operate a waiting list.
The Blessed Christopher Wharton Catholic Academy Trust
St Joseph's is part of the BCWCAT. The Trust has a commitment to the staff and the children's mental health and wellbeing. With a variety of stakeholders, they have created a whole Trust commitment to every part of its family. Our wellbeing charter is below. It has five 'strands' examining different aspects of wellbeing:
- Emotional health and wellbeing
- Physical health and wellbeing
- Spiritual health and wellbeing
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Social health and wellbeing
Throughout the school year, the whole Trust will have a focus on each of the aspects and explore and celebrate them with the children.
We have workshops and online sessions to support the children with their mental health and well being.
On our trust Emotional Charter Day, which also celebrated World Mental Health Day, the school council members spoke to Aisling Given, a life coach to identify ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle and mind.
Well Being Fridays
Every Friday afternoon, before we end the school week, the children spend some quality time in classes and participate in some structured play and well being activities. Sometimes children choose to play chess or board games, some like to read or pray, others like to draw or be creative. There are lots of options available for the children to choose from.
